Mask of Innocence

by Roger Ormerod

  ‘Got it!’ he said, with obvious relief.

  I wondered whether he was going to share it with me, whatever it was.

  ‘A note from Potter,’ he said. ‘He’s our forensic man, up at the cottage. That piece of rock, lying by Pinson’s right hand — it wasn’t what killed him. There’s no trace of soil or bits of grass in the head wound, and the rock’s covered with ‘em. And it’s a jagged bit of rock, but the wound isn’t. It wasn’t the weapon that killed him, Patton. It fits! It fits!’

  ‘What does it fit?’

  ‘The scene I’ve been imagining, that’s what.’

  ‘Which is?’

  I expected him to answer that, as he’d spent a while telling me all about this visualising of his. But he didn’t answer my question, and headed off in a different direction altogether.

  ‘The key’s missing,’ he said morosely. ‘The spare key from under the flowerpot. Missing. I mean, it must’ve been the one used to get in. It was there yesterday.’

  ‘I saw it myself.’

  ‘There you are, then. So whoever it was who got in the cottage first, the one with the torch lying on the floor, then that was the person who used the key. The spare key.’

  ‘Seems obvious.’

  ‘All right — so where is it?’ He glared at me, as though I had it hidden somewhere. ‘The spare key. They call it the spare, but I don’t reckon it’s been disturbed for years.’ He shook his head violently, his hair flying about. ‘Why would it be? They’ve all got their own key to the blasted door. Mrs Searle...’

  ‘I expect she’s Lady Searle. Dowager Lady Searle now.’

  ‘Whatever.’ He waved a hand in the air. ‘She’s got one, that Jeremy’s got one, though he says he’s hardly ever used it, and doesn’t know where it is now. Paul’s got one — he works up there. Paintings or something. So he’d need one. And that Janine’s got one.’

  ‘They call her Jennie.’ I recalled he’d already used that name.

  ‘What’s in a name? Somebody said that. She’s got one, anyway. She says she goes up there every now and then, and tidies for Paul. And Mary Pinson’s got one.’

  I stirred uncomfortably.

  ‘But not with her,’ he went on. ‘It’s at home in a drawer. Says she’s kept it for sentimental reasons — whatever that means.’

  ‘I can’t imagine.’

  He grunted, and eyed me with suspicion. ‘In any event, there doesn’t seem to have been much call for the one under the flowerpot.’ He raised his eyebrows, his eyes becoming round and bright with inspiration. ‘But there was a call for it last night. Now it’s missing — and so it was the one used to open the door.’

  ‘That seemed to be the case, right from the beginning.’

  Phillips ignored that. ‘Seemed’ was a word he would rarely use. ‘So...’ He seemed excited, like a child with a rattle. In fact, he produced his own keyring and rattled it in my face, presumably to ensure that I realised he was talking about keys.

  ‘I think I have the picture,’ I assured him gravely.

  ‘Right.’ He uncrossed his legs and crossed them again the other way. ‘Assuming that Joe — what the hell is his other name? — anyway, assuming he told the truth, then we must accept he saw a light in the cottage before Pinson arrived.’

  ‘I see it,’ I assured him, before he asked. ‘I see it.’

  ‘So Pinson, also spotting it, but from further up the lane, he came back to see what was going on. Maybe from natural nosiness, maybe because he still thought of it as his cottage. It doesn’t matter. He went round the front to see who was doing what.’

  ‘Picking up a chunk of rock on his way, just in case he might need it?’ I said helpfully.

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘I do like.’

  He waved a hand, allowing me the point. ‘All right. Carrying a piece of rock. Round to the front — the front! Round to it. Even the blasted cottages were built backwards. Now...somebody’s inside, so they’d already used a key. Their own, or the one from under the flowerpot — it doesn’t matter which, for now. The fact that the spare’s missing suggests it was that one. Now...would that first visitor go inside the place and close and lock the door behind him? Or her?’

  ‘A woman? Could it have been done by a woman?’

  Phillips shrugged. ‘Everything these days seems to be capable of being done by a woman. But it was a heavy blow with a heavy object. The odds are it was a man.’

  ‘Heavy object?’ I asked.

  ‘You’re not concentrating on the mental picture,’ he accused me, leaning forward and pointing a finger. ‘Anything but that bit of rock.’

  ‘The torch, perhaps?’

  ‘No. Probably not heavy enough. His skull was caved in. Anyway, there’d have been splinters of glass, and there weren’t any. The glass would’ve broken. Sure to have done.’

  ‘All right,’ I agreed. ‘A heavy blow.’

  He lit another cigarette, blew smoke in my direction, and sighed. ‘You’re not keeping your mind on what I want you to visualise.’

  ‘Say it. Say it, then.’

  ‘The first person there...would he — or she, I’ll allow you — would he have locked the door after him as he went in?’

  I didn’t waste much thought on that. ‘Surely there’d have been no point. He wouldn’t have expected to be interrupted.’

  ‘And the key, then?’

  On this, I used a little more thought. ‘It would be left in the lock,’ I decided. ‘There’s no handle to use on the outside of that door, for pulling the door shut after you leave. So it would be natural to leave the key in, half-turned, for when you left.’

  He made a strange grimace, as though he’d started it as a grin and changed his mind half-way. ‘But...’ He wagged that finger again. ‘But it had to be somebody who was confident there wouldn’t be any interruption.’

  ‘As I said,’ I reminded him, ‘there’d have been some considerable confidence in that.’

  ‘Why?’ he demanded. ‘Why d’you say that? Is it because you know it had to be someone from this house, and you know they’d all turned in before all this happened?’

  ‘No. It isn’t. Everybody in this area must know about this empty cottage. Everybody. And each one could be confident of no interruption.’

  He seemed to concede the point, as he inclined his head. ‘Very well. We can now visualise someone using the spare key and going in there with a torch. And there’s a logical picture of Charles Pinson quietly entering the cottage, because he’s spotted a light. With a chunk of rock in his hand. What then? A row. Whatever it was. And the first visitor lashed out—’

  ‘With something heavy?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes. That. With something heavy that wasn’t the chunk of rock...then purely and simply he ran off in a panic.’

  ‘Yet...in this picture we’re guessing at...with all this panic, pausing to lock the door behind him?’ I said this with scorn.

  ‘And that’s what I’m getting at.’ He slapped his knee. ‘I get that far, and the picture goes all blurred. If this character was in a panic, wouldn’t he have simply legged it away as fast as possible? And left the door open, swinging open, with the key still in the lock, and disappeared into the night? Why not? It wouldn’t have made any difference to the fact that a man had been left behind, dead, door open or not.’

  ‘But in the morning, the door was locked. I had to break in at the kitchen door.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘And the key wasn’t in the lock and it wasn’t under the flowerpot.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘So...’ I paused. Now I was with him. ‘So this wasn’t a person who was in a panic? Is that what you’re saying?’

  He banged both palms down hard on the chair arms. Little puffs of dust arose. Tessa wouldn’t have been pleased to observe it. Then he positively beamed. It was not an engaging sight and seemed to give him pain. ‘That’s exactly what I’m trying to get across. Somebody who could afford to stop and think. To
give it time. What’s best to do? He’s standing there, thinking it out. Can you see him, Patton? This is somebody who doesn’t expect to be observed, standing there, thinking it through.’

  ‘Who didn’t,’ I put in quickly, ‘therefore know anything about Jennie and Joe’s habit of meeting up there?’

  He waved a dismissive palm. ‘If he’d known, he certainly wouldn’t have gone there at that time. Oh no. He took his time, and asked himself, “What am I doing? What’s the best thing to do?” And the answer came back: to lock up again.’

  ‘And he didn’t panic, you say?’

  Again he pointed a finger at me, as though it was my fault. ‘And that’s what I’m getting at. The door was locked, and the key taken away or thrown away. Not, you’ll notice, returned to its rightful place under the flowerpot. But that would have been the natural thing to do. To round it off. To leave the cottage looking normal. So why? Why take the key away?’

  ‘And you ask me to visualise the scene?’ I asked gently. ‘And come up with an answer?’

  He was staring at me, nodding, nodding in encouragement.

  ‘I’m sorry — I haven’t got an answer.’

  He said nothing, just stared. I had to go on, feeling a ridiculous and imperative urge to release him from his trials and concerns. ‘All I can do is agree,’ I admitted. ‘Why throw away, or take away, the key? Yes, I get your point there.’

  ‘But...can you see an answer? There must have been a reason. It’s the only point where the logical reconstruction falls flat on its face. Can you see an answer?’

  ‘No,’ I admitted. ‘To have left the door open and cleared off, that would have been logical. To shut and lock it would’ve been logical. But to take the key away seems quite illogical. It would’ve been simple enough to bend down and pop the key back under the flowerpot.’

  He eyed me steadily for long moments, slightly frowning. Then he said quietly, ‘I think you might know the answer. Or guess it.’

  ‘No,’ I assured him. ‘It’s a mystery to me. First catch your man, and then ask him.’

  He sighed. ‘Never mind. You tried. And when we arrest him, he’ll probably say something ridiculous like: I just didn’t think about it.’

  ‘Yes, that’s how things go.’

  ‘But I’ve got an idea that he did think, Patton. That’s the trouble. I believe he had a damned good reason.’

  I stirred in the chair. ‘D’you want me any more, Mr Phillips?’

  ‘No. I don’t think so. Not at the moment. But...if you hear something?’ He raised an eyebrow. I’ve never mastered that.

  ‘That’ll depend rather on what I hear,’ I told him. ‘They’re not suspects to me, they’re friends.’

  He nodded. He hadn’t expected anything different. I paused at the door.

  ‘You didn’t take a statement from me after all,’ I reminded him.

  ‘True, true. I’ll ask you things when the questions arise. All right?’

  ‘Any time.’ I said this casually, as though the choice would be mine.

  The DC was still standing outside the door. He seemed not to notice my presence. He could well have gone into a trance. I could hear the rest of them chattering in the library. Voices were again being raised, and it didn’t seem to be anything to do with a card game.

  Paul was shouting, ‘You had no bloody right. I bet you just chucked ‘em into the cases, any old how. I tell you...if you’ve chipped one of them—’

  I opened the door. There was an abrupt silence. All eyes swung round to fasten on me avidly. Amelia came quickly to me, taking my arm.

  ‘You’ve been such a long while, Richard.’

  It hadn’t seemed so to me. I shook my head.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Jeremy, looking sullen, like a disappointed child. ‘He’ll have had to tell that lanky character every damn little thing he knows about all of us.’

  ‘Well, now...’ I wandered into the room, pushing past Jeremy, who’d tried to stand challengingly in front of me. ‘I wasn’t asked, you know. It seems he already knows all he needs to. Detective Chief Inspector Phillips, I’m talking about.’ I looked round from face to face. I was their connection with officialdom. There was suspicion and reservation, concern and eagerness. ‘Well...as it happens we didn’t discuss anybody, not any specific person. Joe was there, in the discussion, but only because he saw Charlie Pinson arrive on the scene.’

  I looked round for Mary. She wasn’t there. From what she had told me, I didn’t suppose she would be prostrate with distress over the death of her brother.

  ‘Where’s Mary?’ I asked.

  ‘I think she went to sit with Tessa,’ said Amelia.

  Surely Tessa would have had no interest in Pinson’s death, I thought. ‘What’s wrong with Tessa?’

  Amelia shook her head. I didn’t know whether it was a refusal or an answer. Her lips were tightly clamped, but nevertheless they twitched. I looked to Jeremy for an answer. He was, as the eldest, the responsible adult of the family.

  He shrugged. ‘I had to go and see her. I mean, police all over the place. I had to explain. My mother’s always refused to listen to anything that might upset her, so I was a bit...you know...chary about it.’

  ‘But she’d have to be told,’ I said. ‘You can’t wrap her in cotton wool. You told her, then, that Charlie Pinson is dead, and the police are here to investigate?’

  ‘Yes. I told her.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She had hysterics.’ Jeremy shrugged. ‘You’d need to know my mother. She’s always been highly strung. I mean...you never had to take problems to her. Well...the very thought of police all over the house — and I had to warn her they’d want to speak to her — that really set her off. I went to get some brandy, and to look for Gladys. No nonsense about Gladys, you know. But I couldn’t find her, so Mary...’ Even now, he was hesitant about using her name. She was still Nanna to him. ‘Mary went to her.’

  My eyes switched to Amelia. She pouted at me. ‘Tessa’s drunk,’ she said. ‘Jeremy left the brandy decanter with her.’ Her eyes were huge. ‘When I saw her, she was singing to herself.’

  It was unlikely that Phillips would need to trouble Tessa, as it was too difficult to imagine Tessa’s involvement in Pinson’s death. So I couldn’t feel concerned that Tessa might be drunk. But I was concerned about the possibility that she might be celebrating.

  13

  There now seemed to be a hiatus. A long time stretched ahead of us before lunch would break the monotony, and I had the feeling that although instructions might not have been given, Phillips would prefer the main group of us to remain together. I had a ridiculous and almost impossible to suppress inclination to go up to the cottage to see what was happening. But I would undoubtedly have been sent away — a depressing and humiliating thought. I wondered whether I had time for a quick shave.

  But...while we were all together...‘Where’s Joe?’ I asked Jennie.

  ‘He had to get back to his dogs,’ she said. ‘It’s all right. They said he could go, because they’d know where to find him.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘But they won’t want to see him again, will they?’ She frowned worriedly.

  ‘They probably will,’ I told her, explaining so that she wouldn’t worry if they did. ‘He was up there, you know, at the cottage.’

  ‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘He’s told me about it.’

  ‘They may want to check his story.’

  ‘Oh...’

  ‘Have they asked you to confirm it?’ I asked.

  ‘What? Confirm what? How can I confirm anything?’ She seemed agitated. ‘I wasn’t there last night.’

  I grinned at her in encouragement. ‘Only to confirm that you’d done it before, Jennie. Going there...and expecting to meet...’ I left it at that.

  She blushed frantically. ‘But Joe would...’ She stopped.

  ‘Because he’d done it before?’ I knew he had. That they had. But I wanted to hear it from Jennie.

&nbs
p; ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

  ‘Then that’s all right.’ But I pursued the subject. ‘Have you told everybody?’ I looked round at Paul. He and Jeremy were staring at Jennie.

  ‘Told everybody what?’ Paul asked.

  Jennie quickly glanced at both of them, then stared down at the floor. She spoke almost in a whisper. ‘I used to go up there, late-ish. And if Joe was there...well, you know, we’d say goodnight.’

  ‘There, you see.’ I looked round, smiling. ‘I knew it would be all right.’

  ‘Richard, you’re talking riddles.’ Amelia was frowning at me, thinking I was trying to pressure Jennie into something that could be disturbing. ‘What’s all right?’

  I looked round our little group. ‘You mean Joe hasn’t said anything?’

  ‘He hasn’t said anything to me,’ Jennie said, swallowing.

  ‘Oh well. Never mind. I’ll tell you. He was up there — elevenish — at the cottage last night.’

  ‘You’ve said that, Richard.’ Amelia seemed impatient with me.

  ‘But has Joe told the others?’ I looked round, meeting only blank stares. ‘Has he told everybody that he saw a light in the cottage? Did he say he saw Pinson arrive, and go into the cottage? To any of you?’

  Jeremy said, ‘He didn’t tell me.’

  ‘You, Paul?’

  Paul had been staring out of the window. He turned. ‘What? No. Joe hasn’t said anything about it to me.’ He looked slightly belligerent, slightly worried. ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s just...’ I ran my hands over my hair. ‘He’d had a set-to with Pinson in the Red Lion. It could be argued that he might not have told the truth. I mean — about having seen another man at the cottage. A torch in there, and moving feet, anyway. Could have been a woman, perhaps. But that’s unlikely.’

  ‘Man?’ said Jeremy. ‘What man?’

  ‘He didn’t see any more than the light from a torch lying on the floor. That was Joe’s story. But the police’ll be scouring the village by now, searching for any little scraps of information. And the first place they always go to is the local pub. So...by now they’ll know Joe had a motive for killing Pinson. I’m not saying you ought to be worried about it, Jen, because Joe’s so obviously honest that they’ll realise it. I’m just laying on the possibilities, so that you’ll be prepared.’